“We pissed off a lot of people”: Giant data center plan cut 50% amid protests

Although reports indicate—and Adams said was the case in Utah—that communities have genuine concerns fueling the rise in opposition, not everyone agrees that the immense community backlash in the US is rational or proportionate.

On Bluesky, Will Stancil, a lawyer, activist, and housing policy researcher, commented on HeatMap’s poll, suggesting it seemed unusual for public opinion to shift so quickly without “some major data center disaster.” In his thread, Stancil boosted a reply suggesting that data center backlash “hit the algo,” raising a theory that social media is possibly driving anti-data center sentiment.

And while O’Leary blamed himself and Adams for making “mistakes” in Utah, he also claimed that the protests he faced in the state were due to foreign interference, NBC News reported. He accused China of supposedly funding the Alliance for a Better Utah to conduct a smear campaign to set back his project, a claim which the nonprofit has denied.

“All these people have a right to get information,” O’Leary said. “Why are they getting it from a false initiative? Who is spending all this money to put out all these falsehoods and straight-out misinformation and lies and agitate these people?”

In a statement, Elizabeth Hutchings, the communications manager for the Alliance for a Better Utah, mocked the Montreal-born O’Leary, defending the group’s 15-year history and saying, “the only foreign interest in this data center is Kevin from Canada.”

“It’s insulting to Utahns across the state to say that any opposition or protest to this data center is the work of a foreign government,” Hutchings said. “We are proud to live in a state where there are people who deeply care about transparency, their community and their kids’ futures. It is not strange to us that Utahns want to feel heard in decisions that will impact their lives for decades to come.”

Hutchings agreed with Williams that “the issues with the deeply unpopular and problematic project in Box Elder County remain.”

“This is not the first time we’ve dealt with bullies like Kevin trying to intimidate us into silence,” Hutching said. “No amount of propaganda and dramatic distractions will stop us from talking about the real issue: a lack of transparency from our government.”